The Real Truth Behind the Biden Budget Double-Talk

Larry Kudlow

by Lawrence Kudlow: To double-cross or not to double-cross. That is this evening’s question. I’ve already written about it once, but it’s a major moment. An hour after allegedly making a bipartisan infrastructure deal with ten senators, including five Republicans, Mr. Biden then walked away and threatened not to sign it.

That is, the President took the podium by himself (always tricky business with Mr. Biden) and basically said if he doesn’t get his $4 trillion Green New Deal, high-taxed, entitlement state — through a 51 vote reconciliation — he’s not going to sign the infrastructure deal. He said “but if only one comes to me, I’m not. This is only when it comes to me. I’m not signing it. It’s in tandem.”

In other words, he would insist on linkage. He never really used the word veto, but linkage was clear. Now, despite what some prominent Republicans said on television yesterday, I don’t think Uncle Joe Biden has walked anything back. He can walk back a veto because he never explicitly used the word “veto.”

No matter how much White House aides have tried to re-spin this, though (and I’ve been there, done that), I’m arguing nothing has changed. My Senate Republican friends had best wise-up to that.

On Friday, after Mr. Biden’s supposed walk-back, Madam Psaki said that Mr. Biden expected these initiatives would move forward on a dual-track. That’s “Psaki 1” Friday night. Additionally, we’ll call it “Psaki 1-a,” Mr. Biden’s press secretary said, the President will leave it to leaders in Congress to determine the timeline and the sequencing.

Reporter: Is he going to wait for both of them to land on his desk before signing the bipartisan package, waiting for the reconciliation package to come through?

Ms. Psaki: He fully expects, hopes, plans to sign both into law, and he will leave it to leaders in Congress to determine the timeline and the sequencing.

Today, Madam Psaki — call her “Psaki 2” — said the President intends to sign both pieces of legislation into law. “As you know, they are both moving forward in dual tracks... The leaders in Congress are ensuring that is happening.”

So I don’t see much difference between “Psaki 1,” “Psaki 1-a,” and “Psaki 2.” The keyword here is dual tracks, as in you want a bipartisan infrastructure bill? I want the American family plan. Both.

In addition, on one of the Sunday talk shows, Mr. Biden’s senior adviser, Cedric Richmond, when asked if the President would sign an infrastructure bill on its own without reconciliation, Mr. Richmond said, “I don’t think it’s a yes-or-no answer.”

Then there was this:
Jake Tapper: “If it happens, if the bipart infrastructure bill lands on his desk on its own, if that were to happen, he would sign it? Yes or no?”

Mr. Richmond: “I don’t think it’s a yes-or-no question. We expect to have both bills in front of us to sign. And I expect that President Biden will sign the infrastructure bill, he will sign the families plan.”

Now, here’s one technical point. In regard to President Biden’s original package of roughly $6 trillion in additional spending and up to $4 trillion in additional taxes, just to review the bidding, the first leg was the $2 trillion covid relief plan.

That, we now know — given the booming economy and the rise of inflation — should’ve been a non-starter. Most of the country now believes the federal plus-up in overly generous unemployment benefits was a detriment to the economy.

The second part of the Biden package, roughly estimated at $2.3 trillion dollars included a small piece called infrastructure and a very, very, large piece to implement the Green New Deal and to raise taxes across the board to finance it. Prominent in this tranche was hiking the corporate income tax, which now includes the Group of Seven global minimum tax as part of the Biden-Yellen tax surrender and also a domestic minimum tax.

The third piece of the Biden pre-Berlin wall coming down, Bulgarian Green Worker’s Paradise utopia consisting mainly of a wave of new entitlements and other income transfers to be made permanent. They would be financed by a series of brutal income tax increases and a doubling of the capital gains tax and a whopping increase in the inheritance tax by eliminating the step-up basis for capital gains at death.

So you have a $1.9 trillion Covid plunge, a $2.3 trillion American worker plan, and $1.8 trillion American family scheme coming to a tidy $6 trillion and something like $4 trillion in tax hikes. Which will throw a wet blanket over the Trump boom we’re experiencing and yield massive lower tax revenues as a consequence of higher tax rates, per the Laffer Curve.

Stuck in there someplace is this $80 billion for more IRS agents, which is supposed to generate $700 billion from tax cheats like Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and other liberal tax cheats. I feel their pain.

So, at this point, I’m still in the camp that believes Uncle Joe double-crossed the GOP. It was bait and switch. All we’re hearing are blue smoking mirrors from not-so-clever White House aides who are frantically attempting to hide the truth.

What’s the truth?
President Biden is still held hostage by the ultra-left, progressive wish list of Senator Bernie Sanders, House member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the “Squad.” If Republicans keep their wits about them, they can whoop this. Because the country is not behind it.
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Lawrence "Larry" Kudlow is an American television personality and financial program host for Fox network who served as the Director of the National Economic Council during the Trump Administration from 2018 to 2021. Article on The New York Sun.

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